Fantastic single player, but multiplayer is very limited and an afterthought. .Well, you probably know what Gears Of War is, you must have heard of this game. It has been the center of attention for a long time, it was massively hyped as one of the best games of all time. But does it live up to that? Well...in short, no. Why? Well first, let us look at the good.
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The grapics are amazing like everyone says, there is so much detail on nearly every object, there are a few things in the game that do not look so good but that is very rare, like some of the character models for people called "Stranded". .Now you have your sound, this is good and bad.
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The sound effects are really nice, like when you hear concrete realistically crumbling apart from an explosion, or the squishing sounds you hear when you blow someone up into bits and pieces. Sometimes a sound effect will sound quiet though, and in multiplayer, on the map called Tyro Station the train is much louder than everything else. That might not sound bad but if you are playing at night you have to turn your volume low or you will get an earthquake in your room which means you play the game with nearly no sound at all. And the soundtrack is great, it is orchestral music. It fits the mood and feels like it should be there.
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What about story though? Well to tell you the truth, it depends if you are looking for one, if not then it won't bother you that it is nearly non existent. There are a lot of things unexplained, things that obviosuly should have been explained, now this aint a problem if you go to the correct website or if you have the special edition. But when you buy a game, the story should be in it, you should not have to look elsewhere or buy the special edition. So, the story is horrible, character depth/history is left out, origin of the enemy is left out, why the war is fought is left out etc
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Now the single player game is great. Like Cliffy B who worked on this game said, it is a fast paced tactical shooter. Which is true, so this ain't simply run and gun or a slow but enjoyably tense tactical shooter. It combines both, making it fast and tactical, which has been done in games before but not on many. You can have a mate come in and help you at any point in the game which is great, you can be in a tough spot, get a friend to come along and he can back you up. You can do this over live or on the same console. It can be a short single player, but if you start on the harder difficulty it will prolong the game, casual is just a bit too easy and you will rush through the game. What is great is the checkpoints, they a frequent so that saves frustration.
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Now what about multiplayer? Well this is like I said an afterthought, infact this was basically stated as one. If you have any douts, I ain't sure if it is on the downloadable gametrailer vid from the xbox live market place or on the bonus disc with the special features. But it is mentioned that only after it did so well on E3 did they realise they need to put more focus on it. And sadly they did not do enough of that, it is seriously limited and has a lot of unfair kills. So you have player matches where, for some unknown reason nearly everyone has poor skill. But, you can invite mates, and have a couple of other options that you don't get on ranked. Now you take a look at ranked and that is horrible, you can't kick players, infact all you can do is set map, how many rounds, round length and game type. And that is it, if I had to use an example of what ranked matches should be like then I say take a look at Ghost Recon on the 360. That had a ton of options, but Gears is very limited and in no time every match will feel the same over and over. The game modes are slightly different from one another with assination being nice where your aim is to kill the enemy leader but no one is interested in playing that so sadly you won't get to do that match much. Some kills are far too unfair, take grenade tagging, this is where you melee attack by sticking a grenade on someone, that aint bad but it is when the melee range is 4 ft. Heck, I once got chainsawed by someone I just killed.
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It ain't all bad though, the multiplayer forces teamwork. You can not respawn so when you die that is it...gone till the next round. But you can heal a teammate who is down and nearly dead, so you need to stick together and work as a team otherwise you will lose. And while it is seriously limited in options, it is very addictive, sort of like a puzzle game, you just get addicted and go back for another try. .The controls is also another problem it tried to be simple by having so many commands on one button which was a bad idea. You can use it to sprint, dive, take cover and do a swat move. But it can be frustrating to try and do a dive for cover instead to have your character automatically press up against a wall and be a sitting duck.
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What of the weapons, well they don't feel similar, in a good way. You have a shotgun, but this aint like any other in a game, with this one you can actually blow em to bits. The standard machine gun has a chainsaw attatchment. All the guns that are typical in games have a nice twist here that makes them feel different. You also have unique weapons, such as using laser beams from the sky, or a bow gun with explosive arrows etc.
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And what of the look and feel? Well it is sterotypical in the way that everyone is a tough guy, main character has a gruff voice and everyone else has this typical badass attitude, and Cole who is the only black character even has a rap song at the credits. The character designs are comical also, not in a funny way but in how they look, they all have these massive over the top muscles. So everything is very sterotypical but it does not feel to over the top enough to get in the way. .
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At the end of the day, it is suprisingly fun, addictive but lacks variety and stroyline, so if variety and story are very important aspects to you then skip this game, otherwise if you don't mind them gone then get this game.
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My score: 8.4
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